the other.’ Then he earnestly exhorts them to repentance. ‘You, great and small, men and women, cast yourselves humbly before God, with all earnestness and love, beseeching his grace, and praying him to turn away his anger from you. Yes, cast yourselves before him with sobs and tears, with fasting and prayer, like the king of Nineveh and his people. Cry, weep, lift up your voices; that your cry going forth from the depths of this terrible calamity may reach the ear of God.’[746] Thus spoke Farel and Calvin. CHAPTER XV. STRASBURG AND GENEVA. (END OF 1538-1539.) [Sidenote: CALVIN AT STRASBURG.] Calvin, meanwhile, notwithstanding the melancholy which sprang from the remembrance of his recent struggles, was happy at Strasburg. This town, in which, as in a common centre, met the influences of Germany, Switzerland, and France, was esteemed, next to Wittenberg, the most important seat of the Reformation. It was called the _Antioch_ of that epoch, in remembrance of what Antioch was in the apostolic age. Some named it subsequently the _New Jerusalem_, and this partly because it was ‘the hostess of the man who gave his name to Calvinism.’[747] At the period of Calvin’s arrival, Strasburg was already the home of several distinguished men--Capito, Bucer, Hedio, Niger, Mathias Zell, and others besides, who shone in its Church like precious and transparent jewels.[748] ‘What gratitude we owe you,’ they wrote to Farel, ‘for resigning Calvin to us!’ He was a treasure for them. He very much enjoyed their society, and this sojourn was to be beneficial to him. Not only did the affection of Strasburg for him heal the wounds inflicted by the hostility of Geneva, but his mind was to receive still further development. The small city on the shores of the Leman lake was a narrow platform on which it was not easy to move about. But on reaching Strasburg Calvin set foot on the vast Germanic realm which contained so many illustrious men, in which so many profound thoughts were stirring, and in which the Reformation had already fought so many battles and won so many victories. There were, it is true, some opposite teachings, but it was necessary to be acquainted with them. Strasburg, moreover, was the place in which doctrines were weighed one against the other, and where the labor destined to conciliate them was undertaken. At Geneva Calvin might have occupied the post of a spectator who attempts to distinguish by means of a telescope an action fought at a great distance. But now he was in the thick of the battle, learnt to recognize the feeble and the strong, and became one of the combatants, or at least one of the negotiators. His horizon was widened, his intelligence in this vast sphere would be enlarged, his ideas would be developed, would grow, ripen, and move with greater freedom. He would be brought under influences to which he